I rode the copper canyon train in the late eighties. It took me 3 days to get a ticket , the trains were so full. I don't understand how demand went from trains been full to apparently hardly enough to have a bare minimum of trains in 10 years or so . It seems a political decision to appease the new owners under privatisation , rather than lack of demand, that left to the demise of most of Mexico's trains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1IpR0zPMO0Mexican locos in this video have ditch lights on the pilot, which is US practice these days. Gents wear ten gallon hats instead of Mexican sombreros. Apparently there is a Mennonite community on the line, although the women don't wear starched caps the way Mennonite women in my area do.Well armed soldiers are much in evidence on the train. In my area you only see that in Penn Station, New York.

Last edited by philipmartin on Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

David Benton wrote:I rode the copper canyon train in the late eighties. It took me 3 days to get a ticket , the trains were so full. I don't understand how demand went from trains been full to apparently hardly enough to have a bare minimum of trains in 10 years or so . It seems a political decision to appease the new owners under privatisation , rather than lack of demand, that left to the demise of most of Mexico's trains.

You'd think the private operators would make money where there is demand for the service. How do they make money not operating it?

David Benton wrote:I rode the copper canyon train in the late eighties. It took me 3 days to get a ticket , the trains were so full. I don't understand how demand went from trains been full to apparently hardly enough to have a bare minimum of trains in 10 years or so . It seems a political decision to appease the new owners under privatisation , rather than lack of demand, that left to the demise of most of Mexico's trains.

You'd think the private operators would make money where there is demand for the service. How do they make money not operating it?

It's a fantasy, common in the US, that passenger rail can make a profit to the operators. In almost all cases passenger rail benefits society through means not collected at the farebox. In Mexico the political system is so unresponsive to the needs of the voters that the government ignores the real benefits of public transport. They have become too much influenced by their neighbors to the north who have the same fantasies.

David Benton wrote:It seems a political decision to appease the new owners under privatisation , rather than lack of demand, that left to the demise of most of Mexico's trains.

That was pretty much the case, Mr. Benton. When the Mexican government went on a "privatization craze" during the 1990's and invited US investment in their system, both the KCS and UP as a condition of their investment said "no passenger trains - and don't even THINK about something like a 'Mextrak'".

Therefore, a land which hardly has the highway infrastructure found in the US as well as a much lower per capita automobile ownership, no longer, save a few specialized operations like the Copper Canyon and an excursion train to Tequila, has rail passenger service.

There's, of course, the talk of bullet trains, but where's the walk?

Finally, I did a fair amount of riding during the '70's, including the all-Pullman Monterrey-Mexico DF "El Regiomontano".